Her Sister's Secret (1946)

A melodrama that fits in perfectly with its place in the historic time it was set and nowhere else. If a man was walking out with a gal in 1946 immediately after the second world war, he may well have made taking her to this movie a part of his courtship! Nancy Coleman (looking shockingly like Judy Garland) and Margaret Lindsay play sisters with problems... Renee can't have children and Antoinette inadvertently gets pregnant!These days it's easy to be confused about why the people in this movie do what they do... but up until the 1970s being a 'child out of wedlock' was not something anyone would willingly own up to and being unwed parents was something approaching a criminal offence!Anyway, this movie opens up in New Orleans and the Mardi Gras celebrations. The balcony celebrations of the 1940s are nothing like the bawdy carryings on of today! But people still had lots of fun and let their emotions get the better of them... so, Toni meets Dick and they, well, they let their emotions get the better of them... and Toni ends up preggers.Dick gets called up to fight the good fight and after some miscommunication, he simply disappears from the scene. The cad, right?Anyway, the baby is born and secretly adopted by Renee in New Orleans and Toni promises to keep the whole thing a secret and scarpers off to a new life in New York."There's nothing that we should ever regret in life except not having lived it!That's Toni's dying father's last piece of good advice to his unhappy daughter. Now she is so consumed with her own mistake that she gets on a train to New Orleans and secretly sees young Billy from a distance in the local park. After a few weeks of stalking her own son, it gets a little bit creepy and at one point Toni even thinks of picking the child up and running off with him.Dick shows up in New York and visits Renee in her apartment where all the pieces fall into place. The final fifteen minutes are great melodrama and of course everything, thankfully, ties up neatly!Well, it is what it is but despite the delicate subject matter, it comes across as good drama and is still worth a watch. There is a terrible version of this on YouTube and unfortunately, I don't know of a better one.As usual, there are plenty of interesting stories attached to the other players in this movie... Louise Curry plays the stunning, nameless girlfriend of Dick early in the movie. After tiring of the acting game in the mid-1950s, she turned her hand to decorating houses and died aged 100! Fritz Feld provides comedy relief as a wine salesman. If there's a maitre'd, waiter or chef in a movie it's probably this fellow! There are many more...I found it watchable but it is old, it is dated and the themes that it tackles certainly don't apply these days.

In his TCM intro, Robert Osborne correctly draws attention to this film's focus on a child born out of wedlock as its subject area. One wonders to what extent Ulmer, already comfortable at and most likely the "ace" at PRC, was intrigued by the challenge of flying under the radar of the still-in-force Code. The opening section is purposefully, almost archly, romantic; one has no idea of the situation to come, and it is only alluded to throughout the first half of the film. The title itself veils the true emotional core, the unwed mother's conflict, which reveals itself gradually as the film unfolds. It's well into its second half before her emotional plight becomes fully apparent. Guided by Ulmer, the film veers from high romance to the borders of Ed Wood Land – not quite as far afield as Glen or Glenda, but it does have something of the flavor of the "public education" films that were four-walled from the 30's onwards.This may not be Ulmer's best film – I would place The Black Cat, Detour, Ruthless, and to a lesser extent Carnegie Hall in that category. But his skill and talent as a director are evident throughout. The film is fluid with camera moves, never extraneous to its content. Especially in the second half, certain lighting-dictated moods are often quite striking, and the physical motions of the performers occasionally demonstrate the rhythmic pacing that Ulmer's late wife Shirley and daughter Ariane have cited as one of the hallmarks of his direction. As in Ruthless, it is classical style applied to dark content. The result is a tone as fevered as any to be found in Ulmer's work.The child actor does fine. His actions and reactions work to support the purpose of, and at times enhance, every scene. To criticize the performance of a child so young (three years old), as is done by another reviewer, is ludicrous.

The typical movie but nicely about a woman who takes her unmarried sister's child as her own when the latter becomes pregnant after a one night fling with a soldier. Of course, the letter he sent her to explain that his leave had been canceled goes astray.Nancy Coleman as the unmarried lady and Margaret Lindsay, as the sister, play their roles to the hilt. We have guilt, promises broken and an adorable little boy.The atmosphere of the film is a good one as it begins at Mardi Gras time in New Orleans. When I first saw the film and what was taking place, I thought I was headed to the tear-jerker, "My Foolish Heart." Yes, the sisters may have been foolish in what they decided to do, but don't we do things as a sacrifice to children? The story ends on that note.

I really enjoyed playing the part of Billy Gordon in this film. Although I was less than 4 years old, I have vivid memories of the entire process of making this film. The studio lights in those days were very bright & hot, causing the ladies' makeup to run after a short time. The big camera used for close-ups looked like a giant eye which made me quite nervous. I didn't like the tractor being used to move the props around...A tractor belonged outside in my opinion...My 3 year old little mind thought of it like a mechanical Tyrannosaurus Rex with big hind wheels and small front wheels...Quite a scary dinosaur! I remember that the entire cast & crew were so kind to me on & off the screen. My Dad, Mom, brothers & sisters were very encouraging & worked hard to tutor me...Lots of rehearsals were done at home, so that there would be no mistakes on the set. There are relatives and friends who are interested in purchasing this movie...Do you know if it is available on DVD?